The use of various pleat designs in upholstery for automobiles, boats, motor homes and even conventional furniture is widespread. The most conventional pleat design is simply parallel rows of pleats which extend, usually longitudinally, along the upholstery material. It is not uncommon, however, for other upholstery patterns to be formed, such as diamond patterns, and customized upholstery shops are often faced with a substantial task in laying out patterns for the formation of pleats in upholstery.
The technique which is most commonly used in connection with the layout of pleat patterns for automobile upholstery is simply to layout the material to be pleated on a flat surface and then, using a layout square or graduated straight edge ruler, bottom and edges of the material are marked with the desired markings that indicate where the pleats or diamonds are to be laid out. The upholsterer then uses the edge of the layout square or ruler to chalk the pleat lines between the markings laid down on the material. Finally, the upholsterer can sew along the pleat lines.
This pleat pattern layout process is time consuming, even for straight rows of pleats. It is particularly time consuming for patterns such as diamond patterns, which require markings along the sides, as well as the top and bottom of the sheet of material to be pleated. Moreover, laying out the pattern on the material using conventional techniques often results in a waste of time in planning the layout, or a waste of material for failing to properly plan the layout.
Although not used in the upholstery industry in connection with the formation of pleats, pounce patterns have been employed extensively in the garment industry for many years. A typical pounce pattern is formed as a sheet of paper or card stock having a plurality of side-by-side holes which define the periphery of a piece of a garment to be cut from a sheet of garment stock. Pounce, a finely divided particulate material such as chalk or carbon black, normally is dispensed from a pounce bag formed of a porous fabric, and the pounce bag is tapped against the pounce pattern to cause pounce to pass through the openings in the pattern and onto the garment fabric.
In the garment industry multiple sheets of fabric stock usually are stacked and several pounce patterns are arranged on the uppermost sheet in a manner minimizing the waste between the pattern precess. The pounce pattern is held in place and then pounce applied to stencil the pattern on the uppermost sheet, whereupon the plurality of sheets are simultaneously cut along the pounce patterns to produce a plurality of garment pieces having exactly the same shape.
Since pounce patterns have heretofore been used primarily to layout the periphery of fabric pattern pieces, and since the peripheral shape of most upholstered pieces is often a simple configuration, for example, a rectangle, pounce patterns have seldom, if ever, been used to effect cutting of pieces of upholstery to be pleated. Moreover, pounce patterns conventionally have been used in the garment industry by holding the pattern in a single position while the pounce markings are stencilled onto the sheet to be cut; pounce patterns generally are not moved during the layout of a pattern.
Moreover, in the garment industry, the layout of patterns on fabric stock does not require the use of layout squares or rulers. Upholsterers, however, must employ such tools, and any device which enhances pleat pattern layout should not accomplish that end at the expense of multiplication of the number of tools which the upholsterer must manipulate.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for the layout of pleat lines on a sheet of material to be pleated, such as upholstery.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a pounce template and a pounce applicator assembly which are particularly well suited for the layout of pleat lines on upholstery material.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a pounce pattern template which also can be used as a pattern layout square.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for laying out pleat lines on upholstery material which is easy for relatively unskilled workers to layout a variety of different pleat patterns.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for laying out a pattern for pleats, or the like, on sheet material which is easy to use, has a minimum number of components, minimizes waste, and is inexpensive to construct.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a pounce applicator assembly which is particularly suitable for the application of pounce material to upholstery in the laying out of pleat lines.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a pounce applicator assembly which employs conventional materials in an easy to use structure for controlled application of pounce to the pounce template.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a pounce template which can be positioned in a plurality of different indexed orientations on the sheet of material to be pleated so as to build complex pleat patterns from a combination of pounce markings.
The present invention has other objects and features which will become apparent from and are set forth in more detail in the accompanying drawing and following description of the Best Mode of Carrying Out the Invention.